Monday, March 31, 2008

Well...................Nevermind......

I feel like a Lilly Tomlin character, but I can't remember which one.. was it the switchboard operator? Anyway..
there is a purse within my purse.
that was where the wallet was sposed to be
I looked there
the man who cuts my hair looked there
it was empty except for my glasses
On Saturday morning I found my passport and was about to leave for the bank
the purse within the purse was lying there and I took my glasses out
.....
there is a secret compartment inside the purse. A pocket behind the pocket.
you know what was there
as soon as I saw the pocket I knew what was there

Yep
but my cards still don't work, once cancelled they can't be uncancelled
but my money DOES work
and I am willing to wait quietly til my card appear

and I never did put out the contract on that man, so he is safe
sigh
nevermind

Friday, March 28, 2008

And then, it was gone


This is what your brain looks like when your wallet gets lifted out of your purse. In retrospect, I know when and where it happened. Retrospect is great but it doesn't make you feel any better. I had taken my MetroCard out to get into the subway...and put it back... On my way down on the escalator there was a man very intent on passing me on the single person escalator, and he did pass me while bumping into me about 3 times.

I had a wad of cash because I was going to get my hair cut and they only take cash....don't ask, don't tell or something like that. When I went to pay, there was no wallet, and since I knew I had it earlier, I knew it was G - O - N- E. Dammit!!

SO there is a drill.
  • Call the bank and AmEx and discover that you won't have any cards for 3 to 7 days.
  • Cancel the credit cards
  • Cancel the debit card
  • Try to remember the number of the one blank check and give up.
  • Realize that you are currently on 56th street, you live on 181st street and you have exactly $0 and 0 cents.
  • Count blocks....25 short blocks to a mile
  • 181 - 56 = 125
  • 25 short blocks to a mile - give or take - means a 5 mile hike.
  • You are not the Yarn Harlot. You KNOW that you aren't doing 5 miles in those shoes even if there isn't any snow on the ground.
  • Realize that you also owe your hairdresser the astronomical sum that was in the late lamented wallet to pay for the haircut.
  • And then there are the tips.
  • Call the bank again. They suggest you go to a branch and see if they will, out of the goodness of their hearts, give you some of your money since you can't prove who you are.
  • Go out and hunt up a bank.
  • Beg
  • Give them a business card to prove who you are.
  • It happens to be a MOO card with a picture of the GWB on it. Tell them that is where you live.
  • Remember your mother's maiden name, your office phone number - since you don't exactly have an office this is an exercise in creativity - and the town you were born in.
  • Assure them that you don't think that it is anywhere in your purse.
  • Offer to let THEM look in your purse for it.
  • Sign your name so they can compare it to the one on the screen.
  • They reluctantly agree to let you have some of your money.
  • For some reason, be overcome with humility and don't ask for very much money
  • Return and pay for the haircut and tip
  • Walk outside and kick yourself because you now have $10 and you have to spend $2 of that on the MTA.
  • Also in your wallet, your MetroCard with $32 left on it.
  • Realize how much humility sucks
  • Get a $2 MetroCard and go home.
  • Remember that your wallet contained --
  • Your ZipCar card
  • Your insurance card
  • Your Driver's License
  • Your Spring Studio Session card
  • Your NYPublic Library card

Realize that there is probably a bunch of other stuff in there that you can't remember. Think briefly about the Motor Vehicle Bureau. Sigh.

Think about trying to convince a local bank tomorrow that you are who you say you are with your expired Passport (don't ask.. there was that big crush last year and I just couldn't cope) so you can get a little more of your own money.

Drink a beer.

Sigh a lot.

And know that you know what that guy looked like, so he better be looking out for me.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

I did windows









I played with windows today. Not THAT kind, this kind





























It was SUCH a grey day in NY. Yet another one. There has only been, it seems to me, one sunny day in a month. All I can do sometimes is put one foot in front of the other and slog on .... the alternative is to stand still... isn't it?????? Sometimes standing still is appealing. Today lying on the couch being fed peeled grapes was appealing. Alas, Sienna, Romeo and Clementine do not have a single opposable thumb among them, so peeling is probably out of the question. Damn!

They might manage the feeding part though.

Monday, March 24, 2008

We can all just get along...

The weather improved today, and Sienna and I went to the dog park. Take a good look, because soon she is getting sheared and the fuzzy girl will look a lot like a small greyhound...

But right now, I just love her hair, though bathing her is a REAL chore and I haven't done it in a while. Notice how well her back feet blend into the pebbles.















Anyway, after I threw the ball about 40 times, and she was just waiting for "more more more more ball ball ball", this fellow arrived.



That is what I love about New York dog parks, where else would you meet 120 pounds of lap dog..



He is a real sweetie, but also a ball hound, so the ball went in my pocket. This is him hoping that it will fall out somehow..... no such luck baby. Those eyes are staring a hole in my pocket.





The woman in the orange actually came in with the two Shih-Tzus, but since I was not about to give up the ball, he is attempting to convince her that scratching him is her goal in life.





He has succeeded, but the two little guys were a bit jealous.
They tried to convince him to move on, but this was just too funny...


If at first you don't succeed, try again.



Most NY dogs who are used to dog parks will interact with any other well behaved dog, but these guys certainly did demonstrate good dog behavior. Cesar Millan would be proud.

I am really going to miss Polaroid film

This is an emulsion lift on top of an image transfer, both my photos from ages ago. I shot a lot of slides and used them to make image transfers. I never did many emulsion transfers but I always did love this one. I'm going to miss that film a LOT.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

I've been rummaging

in my file folders, trying to organize my life from the outside in, since going the other way doesn't seem to be getting me where I want to go. SO ... I found these. They were taken in upstate New York, Binghamton to be exact, where I was born and sort of grew up. The town has several old carousels and I used to ride on this one just about every day except when it was closed in the dead of winter. It was between my home and my school when I was in my early teens, and it was just something we did as we passed through the park.

It feels a little like the going round and round I have been doing in my head trying to decide what to do about working and arting and living and a lot of other things lately, so, for your entertainment .... The Carousel. The man in the last picture is my Dad. I took him there not long before he died, and we rode it several times.









Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Looking for the Hudson








At the top of Manhattan, in 1776, the Americans built a fort. They lost it the same year. They built it in the summer, they won the Battle of Harlem Heights and sent the British out of Manhattan, and they lost it on November 16th 1776. Fort Washington ... though I suppose the British didn't call it that while they held it.

The Americans weren't staying in the Fort, or at least the big guys weren't. They were not far away at the Morris Jumel Mansion, though I don't suppose it was a Mansion then (or now). When the Americans moved out, the British moved in and stayed there til they gave up New York.









The Americans finally got the Fort back on November 25, 1783, along with the rest of New York, though it wasn't much to get back and it was a long way from the Fort to the southern tip of Manhattan where the rest of the city was located.





President Washington gave a dinner party at the Mansion in July 1790. At the table that night were three future Presidents of the United States: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams.

Sometimes History is interesting all by itself. To know that in those days, you could see all the way to the Harbor , the Hudson River, the Harlem River and the Bronx from right here.

Now, you can't see the River, or much else, from up here. You have to go further up, to the Cloisters to see all the way down the river from up high.... but that's a trip for another day.

I wonder what all those guys talked about on that July night in 1790....

Sunday, March 16, 2008

I promise you that

most of the people living in NYC don't have a clue that it is blowing madly out there, unless they are out in it. Living here I get to HEAR the wind full force. It sounds sometimes like a hurricane, though I know it is really only 3o or so miles per hour.

On the eleven o'clock walk with Sienna it was more like being blown up the hill and then having to fight our way back down. She, of course, loved every minute of it. The colder the better as far as she is concerned.

Late afternoon bridge shots. At the risk of boring those of you still with me, I have to say I am a bridge junkie, so here it was at about 4 pm today...




Thursday, March 13, 2008

Perhaps I have lost my marbles..







I have/make/do a lot of things that just were difficult to imagine as a part of VintagePlastic. They are quirky and different - and certainly not made from Bakelite and Celluloid, though a lot of them do incorporate old things of different types.

SO I found that as long as I referenced the other shop in my description and didn't "heart" myself or anything like that, that I could have two shops.




The new one is just my name... Jordi's


These paper earrings are my first step into the waters. I have been making them for years and the "kids" that I know love them. So here they are. Will they sell??? I wish I knew!

They are inexpensive, as is the shipping, so maybe. I will put the words of your choice on them, and you can buy them one at a time, so you can mix and match. I have a bunch and they wear fairly well, I haven't had any fall apart on me yet, though I am easy on my toys.

I am a little bit worried that they may be too complex a sale, but if I picked out the words I would never have a clue what people wanted...


Feedback is always welcome!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

more of old photos

This was shot by my father, he was a camera buff back in the days of 120 film and funky lighting. He never had an enlarger, so this was originally contact printed by laying the film directly on the photographic paper and shining light on it for a controlled bit of time.

I am now doing something similar but updated, printing out scanned negatives onto overhead transparency film and laying them on top of prepared paper and exposing them with either the sun or with daylight lamps. This one is one of mine.


This one is waiting for inspiration, though I really just like it as is. If you read the Narnia books, it is like the lampost in Narnia to me..

Monday, March 10, 2008

Jesse's Place Hudson Heights

Dinner last night was at Jesse's Place. The first time I ate here I looked around and ordered safely ... a cheeseburger. It was quite good, and I was happy with it. However, the next time I ate here I found the little pizzas. Really good little pizzas, so after the beer, came two pizzas, so we could split. One barbecued chicken.....don't croak, it is REALLY good...

and one portbello mushroom with goat cheese...yum. Half and half - so you have to have someone to share with = they are perfect.


of course there is also the drink of choice. Seems this place has an active bar scene, at least on Sunday night.




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Saturday, March 8, 2008

one of those days...



When you don't know what exactly you WANT to do and you drift from one activity to another, finding this and that to do, not finishing anything. I wish I had exotic pictures of sun and surf to show you, but what I have are these, so they will have to do. I can't even see across the river, and 10 minutes ago, when I took the dog out it was spitting rain. Now it is pouring again and I can just see the trees. I have to admit that those trees make great pictures, though..

Thursday, March 6, 2008

hooray!


Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, I ordered two matching footstools from Overstock.com. I got 2 different ones, sent one back, got another wrong one, sent IT back, got another wrong one and sent back both of them. It was a disaster and the only thing that saved me was that when I contested the purchase with American Express they spoke to Overstock and someone came and picked up 2 40 pound boxes and finally gave me my money back.


That was several months ago, and I couldn't find replacements except at Overstock. I thought I might be on the "never sell to this person again" list, but when I saw some I liked, I tried again and lo and behold, it worked. These arrived today, they are better and slightly cheaper than the others and if I don't learn to like the color I can dye the leather darker...
Nice interior finish, an arm to hold the top up that really works, and ... a bonus...2 boxes/toys for Romeo and Sienna.. what more could you want?

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

I've been playing with my scanner




I'm not sure where I am going with these, there are, of course, a bunch more.


I was messing with backgrounds and with different things in the scan, and then with different arrangements of things.


I have been trying to focus on things that can be sold in the etsy shop, but I needed a break from the bakelite. I have some new ideas for things to do with the pin types, but I will still have some work to do.

SO, I am playing with my scanner .... So there!!!


Sunday, March 2, 2008

not much of nothin'


That was what was left after another meal at YuII, our local sushi restaurant.
This was dessert, I again forgot to whip out the camera when the hamachi kama appeared or when the sushi arrived...... sigh......
I still need a blogger alert to go off when the food arrives, or when something else blog-worthy happens. SO.... maybe the next YuII meal will be captured before it is devoured. I guess it depends on how hungry I am.